In a breakthrough that sounds like something out of Star Trek, [a team of scientists at MIT] have discovered a way of ‘beaming’ power across a room into a light bulb, mobile phone or laptop computer without wires or cables.

In the first successful trial of its kind, the team was able to illuminate a 60-watt light bulb 7ft away.

The past few weekends I’ve been building a treehouse. (Actually Treej Mahal is more like it–I think I may be going a bit overboard, but that’s another story.) I’ve got cords everywhere: circular saw, table saw, miter saw, and although the drill is cordless, its battery charger is not. How much easier it would be–not to mention safer–if instead of cords going everywhere, there was just a power transmitter in the middle of my job site!

Imagine living in an older home where the addition of outlets is impractical and expensive. This is a problem I know well since my parents’ home was built in 1850 and is little changed since then. With a few power transmitters placed throughout the home, their problem goes away.

Imagine vehicle powered power transmitters on boats and aircraft and at campsites and tailgates, or in hotel lobbies, airports, and coffee shops. Imagine lawn and garden equipment–which in recent years has moved in the direction of two-cycle engine power instead of inconveniently corded power–moving back to electricity of the cordless variety.

Imagine golf courses without stables of charging golf carts, instead automatically being recharged at each tee box and green.

The possibilities are mind-shattering. For years scientists working on electric cars have said, “if only we could make more powerful batteries.” Perhaps the solution all along was just to make a better cord–which is no cord at all.

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5 Responses to “Truly wireless”

This sounds freakin’ awesome…could revolutionize a lot of things. One caveat though, I would like to see any possible health risks studied before being brought to the market. I don’t know, just seems like the prudent thing to do.